We took an 8 hr van ride to Lugu Lake. We met this group of guys and gals from Hong Kong and when with them in this 7 seater van. The van was a chinese van, cheap, horrible shocks. we could be travelling on flat pavement and still bounce high enough to hit your head on the ceiling. It was 8 hrs of skinny roads through the mountains against ravines and cliffs and such. in many corners the driver would have to honk going around the corner because the road was so skinny that he had to warn other vehicles if they happened to be coming around the corner at the same time. i dont know how far it is to the lake as the crow flies but in many places you could see the road where you knew you would be driving on later across the gorge or valley or mountain which meant we took a super twisty and long road. there are rock slides, animals, chickens, cows, pigs, goats, children, workers, etc.... all running around these roads that are already dangerous. It was a nervous ride for me. you can forget about sleeping, the van's horrible shocks meant that it was super bumpy the whole way because there was almost no pavement and all dirt and rocks. about every 2 minutes we would hit a big enough bump to send everyone out of their seats. There was also dust from all the cars on the dirt roads so the cabin of the van had a light dirt dust air that felt refreshing on the lungs.

here is a good shot of the road. its paved here cuz its close to Lijiang, but after this it would turn into gravel and dirt and rocks. I was unable to get a shot of the van precariously close to the edge of cliffs and stuff, or us going head on with logging trucks, etc...

i liked this pillow in the van. The chinese interpretation of hell. a cute little pup who is cursed to chase after an unatainable bone for eternity and a half.

this is the chicken that jumped onto the road out of nowhere almost sending us over the cliff. the driver told us that if you kill a chicken around here the villagers make you pay 500 rmb to them.

we stopped to use this bathroom and this is the kid that collects a bathroom fee for you. he looks like he has no qualms about biting your balls off if you give him .5 rmb instead of 1 rmb.

you walk through this building to this backyard looking thing to get to the most disgusting bathroom i have ever used. it is a "public" bathroom. it is right next to this pig pen below that had a heaping pile of animal sheit piled up next to it. that part is bareable. then you walk into the "bathroom" and there you have a concrete slab on the floor with 3 little trough like holes cut into it. in those, piled up is human feces. old dried up feces on the bottom, fresh soft multi colors of brown feces ontop with flies. I peed about 10 feet away from that and ran out crying. definitly the worst ever. a whole in the ground like in the rural areas is better than this. I didn't take a picture because someone said before that they don't want to see anymore disgusting bathroom pics on this blog.

the pig pen and a pile of pig sheit

we finally got to lugu hu. 2 out of 7 people puked. one girl puked many times. it was the worst possible ride if you were feeling nausious. The driver stopped for lunch at the worst possible place. he said go ahead and pick up some food here. there was nothing on the shelf but 3 old rice crispy type things, candy, and soda. Coming down the mountain you turn a corner and then bam! you see this amazing intense blue lake that is huge. it is pretty amazing. my camera sucks so it doesn't look that intense here but the ones of the next day do. anyway you ride this thing up to this mountain peak to look at the lake.

cave monastary inside the mountain peak. lots of stalagtites and mites. there were these things hanging on some of them, prayer beads and stuff?

these are the guys from hong kong. all students. 3 from hong kong, 1 from finland, 1 from pakistan

baboons

wireless mock landline phonesthe cable car ride down. this one was like a ski lift. look at my white knuckles on the left holding onto the bar.

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More about me

I was on an adventure around the world that ended up being 5 years. I lived 1.5 yrs in Beijing from June '08, 1.5 yrs in Tokyo from Sept '09, Barcelona for 3 months in summer '11, 5 months in London from August '11, NYC for 3 months, 2 month Asia trip, NYC for summer 2012, 1 year in Paris until Fall '13 (I got an artist's visa!), and now live in back in NYC. I am a freelance Illustrator working for magazines, newspapers, advertising, publishing, etc...www.JasonRaish.com